I posted this one of the many topics on Anders' act of terrorism, but I wanted to make sure it didn't get lost, because people are going either "OMG HE'S AN EVIL MURDERING BASTARD" or "OMG FINALLY SOMEONE BLEW UP THE CHANTRY" and missing the bloody point: that Anders himself never questioned that what he did was wrong. He fully acknowledges that his actions were murder, and were morally contemptible, and that justice was required of him for what he did. What he understood is that it wasn't about right or wrong, it was about necessity. He believed that the system of imprisoning mages within Circles, under the watch of the Chantry's templars, was wrong, and would accept nothing less than total freedom. And with that, he understood that unless someone was willing to take drastic measures, then nothing ever would change. He knew that the templars would rise against mages everywhere for his action, and that therefore all the mages locked within Circle towers would be forced to rise up against the templars in order to save themselves. By his actions, no mages would be able to take, say, Wynne's position that the templars and Circles are necessary, except for those mages who hated their own magic and wanted to embrace imprisonment or even suicide. They would have to either submit to templar tyranny, or fight to save their own lives. By extension, he also removed middle-of-the-road templars who weren't quite so eager to terrorize the mages under their watch. So he removed any stalemate--"there can be no compromise"--in the name of ending an indisputably broken system that served no one.
- Anders does NOT say anywhere, clearly or otherwise, that he acted to become a martyr. What he does say is that he acted specifically to remove any chance for compromise. He KNEW that what he did was murder, and he knew it was wrong, and he knew that he had to pay for that act of terrorism with his life.
- Following my first playthrough, I had a really difficult time working out my own moral stance on the subject, because I'd romanced him as a mage Hawke, and went into hiding with him at the end, and I'm not going to lie, I had a difficult time reconciling that playthrough with my own morality. The bottom line is that what Anders did was reprehensible. It was murder, without question, and the murder of innocents is NEVER justified. Having said that, it is also completely and utterly true that the kind of change he was advocating for would NEVER have happened otherwise. You can see the groundwork for this being laid in various dialogues in Origins. The one that sticks in my mind most strongly is the blood mage in the Circle Tower: "We thought, someone always has to take the first step--force a change."
- There's just no getting around it: in the real world you see example after example of drastic, permanent changes being made in the world for the GOOD. What nobody ever likes to talk about is that good people, innocent people, can and DO die in the process. The point was also made fictitiously with Andraste: she threw down the Imperium and freed the slaves, and created the Chantry. But she was also a conquering warlord. People DIED because of her, and not all of those people were servants of the Imperium.
- The point to take away from all this is not that Anders was a hero; I'm not making that argument at all. He didn't mean to be a hero for the cause of mages, he didn't mean to be a martyr. He meant only to bring about a complete end to the world's practice of imprisoning mages within the Circles, and he understood that to do that would require that someone get their hands bloody. He decided that he would be willing to do that, be willing to be the person who committed a heinous act so that no one else would have to. He was fully aware that his actions were evil and that they would trigger a war. But he knew that if that act of murder was not done, then the system of the Chantry and templars and mages and phylacteries would continue unabated forever.
- In this, he was a tragic figure, taking it upon himself to be the reviled murderer so that other people would have the freedom to condemn his actions. Like it or not, that is a very realistic, real-world scenario. For every Martin Luther King or Anne Frank or Rosa Parks or Gandhi you see in the world, there are people with blood on their hands who give the rest of the world the opportunity to take the moral high road. Their actions ARE despicable, but that doesn't make them any less necessary. This is the point that the rest of us are missing, from our very comfortable positions in life: being able to take the high road and condemn the actions of murderous freedom fighters is, sometimes, not recognized for what it is: a luxury that we would NOT HAVE if not for those murderers giving the rest of the world something to rally around.
I can't really follow this page. Can one of you who posted clean it up and sign the posts or separate them, or is it one person?... I've been reading these threads on this subject intently but cannot offer an opinion really as I've lots of first hand experience with acts just like the one Anders committed, unfortunately having fought in two wars myself and seen stuff just like this up close. The thought processes of people discussing it are incredibly interesting though, but I can't tell who said what. It seems like one person? Am I correct? Much thanks.... The Grey Unknown (talk) 21:57, March 23, 2011 (UTC)
It is one person, yes.
First and foremost, sign your Great Wall of Text. Second, you bring up Ghandi and MLKjr. (Anne Frank really doesn't apply here) and then continue on to say what Anders did was necessary. In all honesty, it wasn't. Proof? The codex said the citizenry was actively supporting the mages of Kirkwall. My point? At least SOME ordinary people were aware of their plight and were willing to help. That is your "first step." There are real-world examples that prove the power of the silent majority. All that needed to be done was to show enough of the templar's abuses, enough of the inaction of the chantry, enough of the innocence of the mages, and eventually, eventually, the people of Thedas, or at least Kirklwall, would have pushed for change themselves. It happened in India with Ghandi. It happened in the U.S with the Civil Rights movement. Was it a slow process? Yes, very slow. And probably mages would have continued to suffer under the grip of the Templars for generations, had Anders not done what he did. But your claim that the destruction of the Chantry was necessary for change is simply untrue. At most, it was a catalyst for a change. But, as in chemistry, all a catalyst does is increase the rate of reaction: it does not cause it. In this case, as with the real-world comparison of the Church's stranglehold on science and persecution of philosophers such as Copernicus of Galileo, the inevitable liberalization of the minds of the common folk would have been the salvation of the mages. Third, I must confess I will always have to kill Anders for his deed. If he would simply express his regret, or ask for forgiveness, I would spare him. But instead, he remains certain that his path, his murder, was the right one. And for this I must kill him.Rathian Warrior (talk) 22:03, March 23, 2011 (UTC)
I wanted to thank you for the huge spoiler in the name of your topic
I could never kill Anders for what he did. Yes, his actions were horrible but they were also necessary. As much as I hate to say this, war happens. Death happens. Terrorism happens. But sometimes, these actions are necessary to accelerate change. People are scared of change. Sometimes (again I hate to say this) people have to be shocked into taking the first step. Yash7 (talk) 23:49, March 23, 2011 (UTC)